This is NOT Germany!!!

You have no idea how much nicer life in Prague is now that its spring time. Birds are chirping, the grass is green, and once and a while you see somebody smiling (it is still the Czech Republic after all). I am actually able to walk around the city without my face going numb, which has allowed for some serious exploring. Dan and I discovered a cheap ass market which is basically Mexico in Prague (excpet its run by Asians of course, not Mexicans) where I bought a watch for 200kc ($10) and we go for lunch for 40kc ($2). There are sketchy Vietnamese vendors who will wisk you into a secret room in which they are selling "Fendi" bags and designer jeans. And just like Mexico, they won't take no for an answer, whether you try to swindle them or not the price will drop about 50% before you can even understand what they are saying. Their English is generally limited to "Special for you" and "Real from Paris". Right. Either way, we love the Holsovice market, and we will continue to flock their for all of our insanely cheap needs.
Elaine Dowd visited me this last weekend and she wanted to join me for one of my adult classes. On this particular day their were two men in their late 20s/early 30s who are quite chatty and can be very open to conversation. Elaine saw this and quickly took advantage. She taught them slang such as "this sucks" and "thats chill" as well as lingo to "pick up chicks". First, she described, you need a wingman. A wingman will help you pick up chicks. So you see this hot girl across the bar, but shes got this friend with her and the friend is...so-so... and so you get your wingman to go distract the ugly girl while you hit on the hot one. Got it? The older guy laughs, and the younger one says "oh yes yes, like on Sex and the City?" Well done, Tomas. Then we precede to explain to them how friendship works in the United States. Here, they take friendship and the words "I love you" very seriously. They only consider a very small number of people their friends, and they ONLY say "I love you" to a serious girlfriend- no friends, no family, just girlfriends. So we explained to them how friendship works in the states. First you have acquaintences, the people you see off and on and know their name, but you never talk for too long or call each other. Then you have regular friends. These are the people you call for a party and when you hang out when you are really drunk you can tell them,"Oh my god, I love you!" and its OK. Then you have your work friends and your old friends. Then you have your close friends which would include a group of around maybe 20 people who you would call to hang out one on one or on a weeknight. Finally, you have your BFFs. You can have one or two of these, and you generally tell them you love them (especially if you are a girl). Needless to say, the boys were quite shocked. How do you keep up with so many "friends", how can you tell so many people you love them? Well, its hard work, but some country has to be the ignorant friendly ones.
While Elaine has been here she has been fudging it a bit on her tram tickets. Sometimes she buys one, sometimes she doesnt. Sometimes she stamps it twice (though I think that was on accident- perhaps I should have explained). Today, on our way back from the castle, she had a ticket with no stamp on it, so she gave me her ticket and I stamped it. I breathed a sigh of relief when a Tram Man came to check it. That god we stamped it this time! Wait, whats this? He seems mad and is speaking Czech. The tickets not valid. How the fuck did this happen? 700 crown says the Tram Man. Wait, we stamped the ticket though, look. You have too many stamps on this- 700 crown now, he barks. Oh, shit fuck, we stamped the wrong damn ticket. Look, Mr. Tram Man, we are so sorry, will you be understanding? We stamped the wrong ticket, look at this blank ticket. No, invalid ticket, 700 crown...Anyway, if you couldn't see where this was going, it ended with Elaine yelling at him that this would not fly in Germany where they have a much better system. Oh shit, you have awoken the beast. THIS IS NOT GERMANY! 700 CROWN NOW YOU ARE RUDE. Welp, guess its time to go before we get our asses handed to us by a couple of huge Czech Tram Men. Sorry for the less than hospitable public transit system...it happens.

Jelly Doesn't Change Lives

So I have finally settled into my bella apartment in Prague. With its amazingly high ceilings, gorgeous molding, and ironic ikea furniture, I already feel at home. Of course I had to rearrange the furniture once I arrived, but when don't I do that (Hil knows). The homey part is helped by the fact that this all looks familiar:

I don't know if you can tell, but its basically san francisco but bigger. The buildings are all multicolored and side by side, but old and really fucking cool. Right on the next street! Just a plain street, with beautiful, old, multi-colored buildings. Really beautiful close up. Like this one, on the corner of my street:

Just the little things...obviously the old town square, charles bridge, the castle- all that famous stuff is absolutely amazing as well. But I just like how much detail goes into the residential areas. And speaking of residential...dogs have equal status with people here. Prague Dogs are by far the coolest and luckiest dogs in the world. Does your dog get to roam around off a leash wherever he likes? The malls, a bar, a restaurant- who cares! Dogs are always welcome. He can beg for food at that guys table, or wait politely outside of the market while you run in and grab a six pack. He also dresses in the latest fashions. Stretchy pants and a down jacket? Only if they are matching please! A nice knit sweater from Grandma, of course! These human dogs fascinate me every day... 

Unfortunately, without any friends here (or dan) yet, I have found myself rather lonely. Not the sad weepy karaokeing "All By Myself" kind of lonely, but the other kind. You know, when you are at the market and you see salad dressing, what you've been searching tirelessly for, for only $1.50! "My gosh, that is amazing" you say to the salsa. And then, what's this? A scarf for only $5 that will finally cover my face and keep me warm?? "Don't you just love Prague??" you say to the hats. And then on my way home I found myself having an interesting (silent) conversation... I feel like a whole new woman! This has changed my life! I have salad dressing, salt, a new scarf, an umbrella and jelly all for only $15. My face is not cold and my food will have flavor, finally. But c'mon, lets get serious. Jelly doesn't change lives. An umbrella, hell yes. A new scarf will always cheer me up. But jelly...I mean it's ok. I'd probably rather have cream cheese, if I had the slightest idea how to say cream cheese in Czech...

Oh crap, am I really having this conversation with myself right now? I am. I need friends. Dan needs to get here. It needs to get warmer, and I need to stop watching back to back episodes of Breaking Bad. Until then, I will have to suffice with short walks (its too cold to stay out for more than an hour) around the city to dog/building watch. I will survive. 

But seriously, lets see some weather in the 40's here please. 

Ahoy Praha!

That means hello Prague, in czech. Thats all I can say so far. Good start I think! So I finally arrived in Prague today, after a surprisingly comfortable and cheap bus ride from Vienna. I made the mistake not being able to resist a nap, and hence this post comes to you at 5am. Oh wait, its already 6! breakfast in an hour!!
So I am finally on the underground (whatever they call it here) and not sure how I feel yet. I'm in Prague! But I haven't seen anything yet! Then suddenly, my eyes land on the stunningly attractive poster:

and suddenly, instead of being just another American in Prague, I am the girl cracking up in the subway by myself. Laughing at everything. Obviously the poster is a gem, but isn't my life as well? Here I am in a city where I know no one, do not speak the language, and do not have a job. In a city that I didn't even know anything about until a month ago. HILARIOUS right?? Well I thought so, convincing most people around me that I was one of those crazy rejected Americans who had been set free in Europe. On arrival, I realized that one of the main reasons I am here is out of pure stubbornness. I decided I was going to do this, and so despite the fact that all my ducks were certainly not in a row, I came. I have trouble changing my plans, or not doing something I say I will. It's a problem. Ok wait, John Mayer "Home Life" just came on...isn't life ironic?

So what if I have 2 weeks to find a job. Or have a new language to learn, or have a bunch of new friends to make...I have a really good feeling about this. So Prague I say to you: CHALLENGE ACCEPTED. Bring it on (well, bring it on after the jet lag passes)

Part one...Part two

So these are all the places I have already been...I really don't plan to duplicate any of those this time around, I want to go to completely new cities, towns, museums. Except maybe Amsterdam, oddly enough because it was my least favorite last time, because there is the Queens festival and Morg and Dowd will be there!! My first stop will be Vienna on Tuesday...then off to Prague, my new home, on Wednesday :) I can't wait, and I'm sure there will be exciting stories to tell. 

Also, what the hell am I doing moving to a country where I know nobody and do not speak a word of the language? Lets just ponder that for a second...I have no answers. But I do know that I am happy to embrace life and the spontaneous part of my personality that has been rather dormant throughout the rest of my well planned life. 

View Full Size Travel Map at Travellerspoint

If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans

Here were my plans 2 months ago: Live in san francisco, get a job in my field, have cool roomies, work towards getting in grad school, be amazing.
Can you hear God chucking? It's probably because thats no longer even close to what I am about to do. What are my plans now you ask?
To live here:

(Thats Prague, btw)

With this guy:

And do this:

Teach!

Ok so I'm not actually going to teach strippers how it's done, but I am going to teach tiny children how to speak ze language of English. Hopefully they already speak it tho because obviously, I speak zero Czech. 

Quite the departure, right? I have officially warmed to the idea of doing something random and without much purpose, even though that's not the norm for me. I am not sure where all of this has come from, but I have suddenly adopted the attitude of "Why not?". I really can't think of a good reason to not do all of these things. After all, I would probably just be working at micky d's if I stuck around. Oh, and by the way did I mention that this place:

is driving me insane...sorry, Clo, it's not your fault. My life here consists of sitting around all day watching re-runs of Grey's Anatomy, going to get the mail, doing English work, and traumatizing my cat. Are you bored just reading this? Probably. I need to do something, ANYTHING. So by the end of this month I plan to be in Prague. I have heard nothing but amazing things about this city...now all I have to do is find a job. Anyone got one for me?

The travels continue! 

"Actually, its quite common" -Dumbass

Today is my last full day in Europe. Ummmmmm, how do I feel? I don't know. For a few weeks I was so exhausted and excited to go home and missing everyone tons and yadayada...Now I want to shout WAIT....though I'm not quite sure what would follow that exclamation. I do still want to go home, I am done living out of a suitcase, but I wish Europe wasn't so god damned far away. I want to be able to come back for a weekend or a short holiday. Oh how I will miss hostels and having my daily meals look a little like this:
      Breakfast: Stuff my face with as much food as can fit in there from the free hostel bfast buffets. This usually means two bowls of cereal and 3 pieces of bread with jam.
      Lunch: Skip it? Maybe gram a 50cent box of custard cream cookies, if I feel like splurging.
      Dinner: Eat early, because I skipped lunch. Grab the cheapest thing I can find in a Tesco (european Longs), usually something on sale because its slightly old or lacks any taste. Search for the cheapest possible bottle of wine to make you forget that what you are eating really isn't that good.
And then Dan and I would find a stoop on which to consume our meal...all in all, it was great fun to do this. One days worth of food could cost only 3euro! If that doesn't make all the crappy food taste better, I don't know what would.

So I am residing in Edinburgh right now, waiting for my long ass bus ride that will depart for London this evening. I lovvvve this city, and can see why Ratchel would not cease to talk of it for an entire year. Such beautiful buildings and awesome pubs...but my favorite part was all of the old graveyards. You can't walk more than four blocks without hitting one, and they are all twice as beautiful in the fall with autumn trees just blinding you with their ability to be 100 colors at once. Why can't I do that? Uncool. But the hostel we stayed at...haha. The first day we get to the beds they assigned us, lock up ALL of my stuff, literally everything I have accumulated on this european adventure, and we head to town. When we return, my stuff is out of the locker and has haphazardly been strewn about by the intruder. SHOCKING! My laptop, my expensive shoes, all of my clothing...all still there. What a silly robber. Either way, I'm obviously not down so I head to the front desk to cancel our second night so we can stay somewhere without lock cutters roaming around. And the guy at the desk...this guy....THIS GUY was like oh yeah, that was me. UM? Yeah, your stuff was in the wrong locker so we cut it open because that locker was for someone else. Oh, well in that case I am definitely leaving because 1. You told us those were our lockers and 2. You dont even feel bad about this!! So his explanation is Oh well, actually its quite common. Oh ok, as long as its common for you to break locks and throw peoples belongings around the room, then maybe I'll stay? What a putz. Twist end of story: We decided to stay the extra night anyway and they gave it to us FO FREE. Best turn of events ever.
Anyway, back to California tomorrow, assuming that all goes well in travel. Keeping my fingers crossed!

If its Tuesday, we must be in Brugge....right??

Where in the world am I? I can hardly keep track these days, as I never seem to stay anywhere for too long. It’s always a bit heartbreaking to leave a city that you just met; I am always so dramatic with my goodbyes. Ciaaaao, Italia-ti amo! Au revoir paris…I don’t know how to say anything else in French, but I can do a little wave with a French looking blown kiss. I have finally figured out the metro and rail maps, decided my favorite place to eat, discovered the perfect place to drink wine in public (how is that not legal in the US??) only to be ushered off to my next destination. It’s not a hard life, but it’s not a permanent one either. Oh, how I miss living out of closets and dressers! Life is not meant to fit in a few of those airtight bags that suck all of the life out of your clothing and replace it with wrinkles.

Anyway, I figured I needed to remember all the places I've been and what I've loved about them. Also, I know there are a few people who are planning to pop over to this ancient continent soon (seriously, even the toilets are older than California here) so I thought I'd compile a list of where I went and what I loved. This is a partial list, as I have written it and now I'm bored of this, so I'll finish it later, perhaps when I have no life in Petaluma.

Barcelona: One of my favorites. Churros dipped in hot chocolate sauce at 4am really is the best and worst idea ever. Barcelonians are possibly the most helpful people I’ve met on this continent, but also the ones who don’t seem to know left from up. It’s shocking how many people were always willing to offer directions, and even more shocking how many of them were not even remotely correct. Guell park made me feel like someone had granted my childhood wishes and finally brought me into a Dr. Seuss book, all that was missing was the Lorax. I am beyond jealous that Morgan gets to stay there through at least the rest of the month, and visit again throughout the year.

Dublin: Exactly as I pictured it, but with a little less rain. Don’t get me wrong, it definitely rained every day. But not all day every day.  Which was nice, but then you have to do the raincoat dance every hour or so. Oh shit, its bloody pissing rain, on with the coat. God damn, its hot- now I have to carry this wet fucker. Every other door lead into a pub, that was somehow packed at all hours of the day (and Dan says the French never seem to go to work). Inside you would find a drunken/oddly talented guy showing off his skills of not taking a breath for what seems like 5 minutes while he spews out lyrics in an unknown language- unknown because its literally so fast and slurred you can’t really tell if its drunken English or Irish. Guinness flows like water and everyone loves to drink, including all of Dan’s aunts, uncles, and thousands of cousins, most of who seem to be related in more than one way if you catch my drift. Also, CHOCOLATE. If you see me within a week of my getting home, make me bring you an irish chocolate. Deeeelish.

Cardiff: That’s in Wales, by the way. Yeah, I didn’t really know that either (I believe I even thought Wales was part of England, not even its own country. Oops) until I met Simon in Maine 2 years ago. As soon as we arrived we witnessed two guys drunk off their ass (hopefully) jump into a river that was just sparkling with the thin layer of oil and soda cans floating on top, and swim out to a big wooden structure which one proceeded to jump off of, while the other pussied out. We proceeded to have fish and chips with Simon and his lovely girlfriend; and although they were are age, you would never know it. Simon and Ceri just bought- BOUGHT- a beautiful welsh condo which they have completely decorated, filled with pictures, real sofas not acquired from street corners or good will, and stocked with real adult food. They both have jobs with salaries and enjoy spending time with their families…how crazy, to be 23 and already be all grown up! Anyway, Wales was cool, we did a little pub quiz, didn’t embarrass ourselves too badly. Turns out I know about 2/100 random UK facts. Honestly, not as bad as I thought.

Paris: My favorite!! Bella citta! I still speak no French, and the French still seem to hate me for it, but I don’t even care. In 4 days we managed to go to (fo free) the Louve (or as much as you can do in 3.5 hours, which seems to be about a third of it. It’s a beast), Notre Dame where I swear I saw Quasimoto, Sacre Coeur which you can see the entire city from…and then not fo free the Eiffel tower at sunset, que romantique, and the Catacombs, which are like nothing I never knew even existed. Oh, and guess how many scarves there are in this city? MILLIONS. On every corner, every alley, every little store sells scarves. It’s amazing that I managed to not buy one, but Dan’s ridicule of the other 4 scarves I have bought so far stopped me, so I bought my mom one instead. Every lunch consisted of a different kind of cheese and bread or a crepe along with a cheap bottle of wine, and every street you walked on was beautifully decorated with rot iron balconies, trees with autumn leaves, and couples sucking face. The most PDA I have ever seen in one place. Kinda gross, but hey-if you can't beat em, join em!

Brugge: If you have seen the movie, then you have no idea what Brugge is like. Not only can you wonder along cobblestone while eating THE BEST french fries in the place where they were invented, but you can sample hundreds of different kinds of amazing beer, most for under 4euro per glass. 72 Chocolate stores in the city center, with a population of only about 20,000. We had to stay an extra night after visiting the De Garre pub which is the only place to serve the deliciously creamy Garre beer, with a complementary cheese snack. Unfortunately, the only people we met in Brugge were from the bay area, San Diego, and Pennsyvania. Ewww.

Now we are in Amsterdam and its too overwhelming to discuss now... Great place, but its a bit like Las Vegas...2 nights will be enough. Miss you all, can't wait to hear about where everyone else loves to go so I can expland my list of places to visit for my next adventure!!